Rise to power

When Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon in 539 BC, Cambyses was employed in leading religious ceremonies.[9] In the cylinder which contains Cyrus' proclamation to the Babylonians, Cambyses' name is joined to his father's in the prayers to Marduk. On a tablet dated from the first year of Cyrus, Cambyses is called king of Babylon, although his authority seems to have been ephemeral. Only in 530 BC, when Cyrus set out on his last expedition into the East, did Cyrus associate Cambyses with the throne. Numerous Babylonian tablets of the time date from the accession and the first year of Cambyses, when Cyrus was "king of the countries" (i.e., of the world).

After the death of his father in 530 BC, Cambyses became sole king. The tablets dating from his reign in Babylonia run to the end of his eighth year, in 522 BC. Herodotus (3.66), who dates his reign from the death of Cyrus, gives his reign a length of seven years five months, from 530 BC to the summer of 523 BC.[10]

The traditions of Cambyses

The traditions about Cambyses, preserved by the Greek authors, come from two different sources. The first, which forms the main part of the account of Herodotus (3. 2–4; 10–37), is of Egyptian origin. Here Cambyses is made the legitimate son of Cyrus and a daughter of Apries named Nitetis (Herod. 3.2, Dinon fr. II, Polyaen. viii. 29), whose death he avenges on the successor of the usurper Amasis. Nevertheless, (Herod. 3.1 and Ctesias a/i. Athen. Xiii. 560), the Persians corrected this tradition:

Cambyses wants to marry a daughter of Amasis, who sends him a daughter of Apries instead of his own daughter, and by her Cambyses is induced to begin the war. His great crime is the killing of the Apis bull, for which he is punished by madness, in which he commits many other crimes, kills his brother and his sister, and at last loses his empire and dies from a wound in the thigh, at the same place where he had wounded the sacred animal. Intermingled are some stories derived from the Greek mercenaries, especially about their leader Phanes of Halicarnassus, who betrayed Egypt to the Persians. In the Persian tradition the crime of Cambyses is the murder of his brother; he is further accused of drunkenness, in which he commits many crimes, and thus accelerates his ruin.

These traditions are found in different passages of Herodotus, and in a later form, but with some trustworthy detail about his household, in the fragments of Ctesias. With the exception of Babylonian dated tablets and some Egyptian inscriptions, we possess no contemporary evidence about the reign of Cambyses but the short account of Darius I in the Behistun Inscription. It is difficult to form a correct picture of Cambyses's character from these inscriptions.

Darius' account

Conquest of Egypt

It was quite natural that, after Cyrus had conquered the Middle East, Cambyses should undertake the conquest of Egypt, the only remaining independent state in that part of the world. The war took place in 525 BC, when Amasis II had just been succeeded by his son Psamtik III. Cambyses had prepared for the march through the desert by forming an alliance with Arabian chieftains, who brought a large supply of water to the stations. King Amasis had hoped that Egypt would be able to withstand the threatened Persian attack through his alliance with the Greeks.

But this hope failed, as the Cypriot towns and the tyrant Polycrates of Samos, who possessed a large fleet, now preferred to join the Persians, and the commander of the Greek troops, Phanes of Halicarnassus, also went over to them. In the decisive battle at Pelusium the Egyptian army was defeated, and shortly afterwards Memphis was taken. The captive king Psammetichus was executed, having attempted a rebellion. The Egyptian inscriptions show that Cambyses officially adopted the titles and the dress of the Pharaohs.

Attempts to conquer south and west of Egypt

From Egypt, Cambyses attempted the conquest of Kush, located in the modern Sudan. But his army was not able to cross the deserts and after heavy losses he was forced to return. In an inscription from Napata (in the Berlin museum) the Nubian king Nastasen relates that he had defeated the troops of "Kambasuten" and taken all his ships. This was once thought to refer to Cambyses II (H. Schafer, Die Aethiopische Königsinschrift des Berliner Museums, 1901); however, Nastasen lived far later and was likely referring to Khabash. Another expedition against the Siwa Oasis also failed and the plan of attacking Carthage was frustrated by the refusal of the Phoenicians to operate against their kindred.

The death of Cambyses

According to most ancient historians, in Persia the throne was seized by a man posing as his brother Bardiya, most likely a magus, or a Zoroastrian priest named Gaumata. Some modern historians consider that this person really was Bardiya, whereas the story that he was an impostor was spread by Darius I after he became monarch.[11]

Whoever this new monarch was, Cambyses attempted to march against him, but died shortly after under disputed circumstances. According to Darius, who was Cambyses' lance-bearer at the time, he decided that success was impossible, and died by his own hand in 522 BC. Herodotus and Ctesias ascribe his death to an accident. Ctesias writes that Cambyses, despondent from the loss of family members, stabbed himself in the thigh while working with a piece of wood. He died eleven days later from the wound. Herodotus' story is that while mounting his horse, the tip of Cambyses' scabbard broke and his sword pierced his thigh - Herodotus mentions it is the same place where he stabbed a sacred cow in Egypt. He then died of gangrene of the bone and mortification of the wound. Some modern historians suspect that Cambyses was assassinated, either by Darius as the first step to usurping the empire for himself, or by supporters of Bardiya.[12] According to Herodotus (3.64) he died in Ecbatana, i.e. Hamath; Josephus (Antiquites xi. 2. 2) names Damascus; Ctesias, Babylon, which is highly unlikely.[13]

The location of Cambyses' tomb is uncertain and has been debated for a long time. Some archaeologists consider that he was buried in Pasargadae, and identify the tower known as "Zendan-e Sulaiman" as his tomb.[14] The possibly unfinished stone platform known as Takht-e Rustam near Naqsh-e Rustam has long been suggested by archaeologists as a location for Cambyses' tomb, based on the similarity of its design and dimensions with those of the tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadae. However, among the Persepolis Fortification Tablets there is one in Elamite that refers to the "šumar of Cambyses and Lady Upanduš in Narezzaš". (NN 2174) Henkelman has argued that šumar should be translated as a tomb.[15] Since Narezzaš is typically identified with the modern area of Neyriz in Fars province, Henkelman argues that Cambyses' tomb must have been located in that area. The Lady Upanduš of the text is not known from any other source, but could have been Cambyses' queen.

The lost army of Cambyses

The lost army of Cambyses II according to a 19th-century engraving

According to Herodotus 3.26, Cambyses sent an army to threaten the Oracle of Amun at the Siwa Oasis. The army of 50,000 men was halfway across the desert when a massive sandstorm sprang up, burying them all.[16] Although many Egyptologists regard the story as a myth, people have searched for the remains of the soldiers for many years. These have included Count László Almásy (on whom the novel The English Patient was based), and modern geologist Tom Brown. In January 1933, Orde Wingate searched unsuccessfully for the Lost Army of Cambyses in Egypt's Western Desert, then known as the Libyan Desert.[17]

From September 1983 to February 1984, Gary S. Chafetz, an American journalist and author, led an expedition (sponsored by Harvard University, The National Geographic Society, the Egyptian Geological Survey and Mining Authority, and the Ligabue Research Institute) that searched for the Lost Army of Cambyses. The six-month search was conducted along the Egyptian-Libyan border in a remote 100-square-kilometer area of complex dunes south west of the uninhabited Bahrein Oasis, approximately 100 miles south east of Siwa (Amon) Oasis. The $250,000 expedition had at its disposal 20 Egyptian geologists and labourers, a National Geographic photographer, two Harvard Film Studies documentary film-makers, three camels, an ultra-light aircraft, and ground-penetrating radar. The expedition discovered approximately 500 tumuli (Zoroastrian-style graves) but no artefacts. Several tumuli contained bone fragments. Thermoluminence later dated these fragments to 1,500 BC, approximately 1000 years earlier than the Lost Army. A recumbent winged sphinx carved in oolitic limestone was also discovered in a cave in the uninhabited Sitra Oasis (between Bahariya and Siwa Oases), whose provenance appeared to be Persian. Chafetz was arrested when he returned to Cairo in February 1984 for "smuggling an airplane into Egypt," even though he had the written permission of the Egyptian Geological Survey and Mining Authority to bring the aircraft into the country. He was interrogated for 24 hours. The charges were dropped after he promised to donate the ultra-light to the Egyptian Government. The aircraft now sits in the Egyptian War Museum in Cairo.[18][19]

In the summer of 2000, a Helwan University geological team, prospecting for petroleum in Egypt's Western Desert, came across well-preserved fragments of textiles, bits of metal resembling weapons, and human remains that they believed to be traces of the Lost Army of Cambyses. The Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities announced that it would organize an expedition to investigate the site, but released no further information.[20]

In November 2009, two Italian archaeologists, Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni, announced the discovery of human remains, tools and weapons which date to the era of the Persian army. These artefacts were located near Siwa Oasis.[21] According to these two archaeologists this is the first archaeological evidence of the story reported by Herodotus. While working in the area, the researchers noticed a half-buried pot and some human remains. Then the brothers spotted something really intriguing—what could have been a natural shelter. It was a rock about 35 meters (115 feet) long, 1.8 meters (5.9 feet) high and 3 meters (9.8 feet) deep. Such natural formations occur in the desert, but this large rock was the only one in a large area.[22] However, these "two Italian archaeologists" presented their discoveries in a documentary film rather than a scientific journal. Doubts have been raised because the Castiglioni brothers also happen to be the two film-makers who produced five controversial African shockumentaries in the 1970s—including Addio ultimo uomo, Africa ama, and Africa dolce e selvaggia—films in which audiences saw unedited footage of the severing of a penis, the skinning of a human corpse, the deflowering of a girl with a stone phallus, and a group of hunters tearing apart an elephant’s carcass.[23] The Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, has said in a press release that media reports of this "are unfounded and misleading" and that "The Castiglioni brothers have not been granted permission by the SCA to excavate in Egypt, so anything they claim to find is not to be believed."[24]

In fiction

Cambyses II has appeared as a character in several works of fiction. Thomas Preston's play King Cambyses, a lamentable Tragedy, mixed full of pleasant mirth was probably produced in the 1560s. A tragedy by Elkanah Settle, Cambyses, King of Persia, was produced in 1667. Cambyses and his downfall are also central to Egyptologist Georg Ebers' 1864 novel, Eine ägyptische Königstochter (An Egyptian Princess). Qambeez is a 1931 play about him by Ahmed Shawqi. In 1929, Robert E. Howard (under the pseudonym "Patrick Howard") published a poem, "Skulls and Dust", about Cambyses's death. He is a main character in Tamburas (1965; English translation 1967) by Karlheinz Grosser.

Paul Sussman's novel The Lost Army of Cambyses (2002) recounts the story of rival archaeological expeditions searching for the remains of his army. An archaeological search for Cambyses' army is an important plot device in Tess Gerritsen's novel The Keepsake (2008). The lost army also features in Christopher Golden's Hellboy novel The Lost Army (2003), and Biggles Flies South (1938).

Etymology

Though numerous scholars link Cambyses to the Sanskrit tribal name Kamboja there are also few scholars who suggest Elamite origin of the name.[28][29]Jean Przyluski had sought to find an Austric (Kol or Munda) affinity for Kamboja.[30]

Spiegel also regards Kamboja/Kambujiya (Cambyses) and Kuru/Kyros (Cyrus) as the names of two pre-historic/legendary heroes of the Indo-Iranians (i.e. prior to their split into Indo-Aryans and Iranians) which were later revived naturally in the royal family of the Achaemenes and further opines that the myths about Cyrus were largely due to the confusion between the historical and the legendary heroes of the prehistoric period [41]

James Hope Moulton regards Spiegel's suggestions as the best of other etymological explanations of these two names.[34] As against this, Arnold J. Toynbee discusses the issue of two Persian names Kambujiya (Cambyses) as well as Kurush (Cyrus) elaborately and regards them both as derived from the two Eurasian nomads, the Kambojas and the Kurus mentioned in the Sanskrit texts and who, according him, had entered India and Iran in the Volkerwanderung of 8th and 7th century BC.[42][43][44]

Toynbee concludes that the conquest of the world by elder branch of the House of Achaemenes had been achieved by the valor of the Kuru and Kamboja Nomad reinforcements, hence as a commemoration, the elder branch of the House had named all their great princes from Cyrus-I onwards, alternately, as Cyrus (Kurosh/Kuru) and Cambyses (Kambujiya/Kamboja).[43][45][46]

↑David Flusser, ed. The Josippon [Josephus Gorionides], Edited with an Introduction Commentary and Notes, Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1981, p. 48, 10:34. Note that in Rashi's commentary on Daniel 11:2, this name has been corrupted to במבישה, Bambisha, due to the graphic similarity of the Hebrew letters Kaf and Beth.)

↑According to Toynbee: "...the occurrence of the two names (i.e Kuru and Kamboja) in Transcaucasia as well as in and near India—and in Transcaucasia at close quarters—indicates that we have here two more names of Eurasian Nomad peoples who took part, and this in one another's company, in the Volkerwanderung of eighth and seventh centuries BC; and, if, like so many of their fellows, these Kurus and Kambojas split into two wings whose paths diverged so widely, it does not seem unwarrantable to guess that a central detachment of this pair of migrating peoples may have found its way to Luristan and there have been taken into partnership by Kurus I's father Cispis." (See: A study of history: Volume 7, 1961, p 553 seq, Arnold Joseph Toynbee, Edward DeLos Myers, Royal Institute of International Affairs).

↑Observes A. J. Toynbee: If the Lydian Monarchy had broken the force of the Cimmerian horde in Anatolia and had imposed its own rule as far eastwards as the River Halys, the Lydians had owed their success to the valour of their mercenary Spardiya Nomad cavalry; and as for the conquest of the World by the elder branch of the House of Achaemenes, as the alternating name of Kurus and Kambujiya born by their princes from Cyrus-I onwards testify, their fortune had been made for them by the valour of the Kuru and Kamboja Nomad reinforcements (See: Estudio de la historia: Volume 7, Part 2, 9161, pp 577/78, Arnold Joseph Toynbee OR A study of history: Volume 7, 1961, pp 553 seq, 580 seq, Arnold Joseph Toynbee, Edward DeLos Myers, Royal Institute of International Affairs).